There exist numerous types of smoke detectors. Some smoke detectors produce an audible alarm, such as an alarm generated from a buzzer or a speaker, while other smoke detectors produce a visual alarm. The success of smoke detectors with audible alarms correlates directly with the quality of the sound generated by the smoke detector and the type of audible alarm produced. For instance, recent tests have shown that children experience deeper stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM), particularly at stages three and four, than adults and have higher arousal thresholds. As a result, more often than not, children sleep through the alarms found in conventional smoke detectors. These tests have also shown that children are very likely to wake up from a deep sleep when they hear the voice of one of their parents.
As a result of these tests, smoke detectors capable of replaying voice recordings have been developed that enable parents to record their voice on a smoke detector so that when the smoke detector detects the presence of smoke, the smoke detector plays the prerecorded voice of a parent instructing the child to wake up and leave the room as previously taught. Smoke detectors such as these have proved to be more successful in awakening sleeping children than conventional smoke alarms.
While these recordable smoke detectors have been more successful in awakening sleeping children, these recordable detectors have not always performed adequately. For instance, the quality of a playback of a voice message is not always sufficient. More particularly, many smoke detectors suffer from having the inability to produce a loud, clear voice in a cost efficient manner. Thus, a need exists for a smoke detector having improved playback features for increasing the quality of voice playback in smoke detectors.